Tuesday, June 14, 2016

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

That right there is the new trailer for Breath of the Wild, the upcoming Zelda game that might wind up being a joint title between the Wii U and NX. And I think it looks amazing.

It looks like Breath of the Wild is going to see a serious reconceptualization of the Zelda series. We already knew that they were talking about making it more of an open-world game, without a strict progression of dungeons (and to be fair, there have been Zelda games in the past where you could do dungeons in different orders,) but from what they've announced, there's going to be more RPG elements in this one than what we've seen in the past.

For one thing, gear is going to have actual stats on it. So you'll get a bow at some point with an attack power of 3 and later on maybe find one with 5. They also said that weapons will have durability that degrades from use, and so you'll be taking the weapons of enemies you slay (actually, this one I'm not crazy about. I have to imagine that the Master Sword either never degrades or there will be a way to repair it.)

You'll also recover health by finding fruits and mushrooms out in the wild, which Link can cook.

The game looks absolutely gorgeous, and while the purist in me is nervous about these new elements being introduced to the series, fearing it might make the game feel like just another open-world RPG, I also think allowing the Zelda formula to change for the first time since Ocarina of Time is not a terrible idea.

Obviously I was going to get this game already, but I'm pretty damn excited about it now.